


Christmas Stories

by Skinner (psiten)



Series: Serious [9]
Category: Prince of Tennis
Genre: Children, Fluff, Humor, M/M, No Plot, Romance, non-continuous
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psiten/pseuds/Skinner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New Installment: "Late Christmas"</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>It wasn't that he wanted to make his parents sad.  He just didn't like tennis.</p>
</blockquote><p>A series of vignettes from the various Christmases of Tezuka and Fuji's lives, jumping back and forth in time.  Individual stories can be read alone, or the they can be read in sequence.  Rating may vary from scene to scene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Christmas Eve

     Something rich and beefy-smelling was broiling in the oven, while Dad stirred some kind of fruity sauce on the stove. He was humming to himself cheerfully. Kenji could just sense the Christmas mood creeping in from all sides. He sighed, flipping through his new joseki book... which was the only reason he was basking in holiday cheer right now. If he went much earlier to the station where he planned to meet Emiko-chan and Saeki-kun, he'd just be waiting around there, without a book. Like he was going to take this one anywhere it might get dirt on it...

     Normally, it wouldn't have been so bad, but his parents had decided to stay in this year... hence Dad cooking something complicated, and Father running out to get something for dessert.

     "Kenji?" his dad asked with a sweet smile. Too sweet. Which could only mean one line of questioning... "Didn't you have... you know..." Dad bit his lip, probably considering whether he should rephrase, but Kenji knew perfectly well that he wouldn't. "...Plans?"

     "Way to make me feel wanted, Dad." He flipped another page. There was no point in playing dumb, though. He didn't want to be around for his parents' romantic night in anymore than his parents wanted him there. Of which fact his dad was perfectly well aware, so he just continued without waiting for a reply. "I'm meeting Emiko-chan in a few, but it's still early." The three of them had their annual Christmas Eve _Let's Get Out of the House Now, And Away From Our Parents, Please_ plans set as firmly as they ever did. Meet, get some food, hang out, head back to Saeki-kun's place where the gameroom was in a separate wing of the house.

     The key turning firmly in the front door would be Father, and it sounded like he had his hands full. Kenji put his book away, and when he went over to help found his Father pushing the door open with his back and carrying a largish brown paper bag with both arms.

     "Here," Kenji said, holding out his arms to take the bag. His father blinked at him in confusion once, not nearly as rude as his dad could be sometimes. Rolling his eyes, Kenji explained, "I'm leaving to meet Emiko-chan in, like, five minutes, okay? Do you want me to get that for you?"

     His father let him take the paper bag into the kitchen while he removed his shoes with a reserved, "Thank you." He peeked, of course. Sundry groceries, and a discreetly wrapped drugstore bag, so that meant all three C's...

     Champagne, chocolate, and condoms.

     _Ugh._

     Parents should not, in Kenji's opinion, be allowed to have sex. Not his parents, anyway. But since they would never listen to his opinion on that subject, he never brought it up.

     Dad came over to get the bottle of champagne and put it in the fridge to chill. "Have fun with Saeki-kun and Emiko-chan, okay, Kenji?" His dad's smile was now more bright than sweet. Much less scary. "Make sure you call if something happens."

     "I will, don't worry." He walked around the corner to get his jacket from the front closet, since there clearly wasn't any more point to staying around here... His father passed by him at the door frame. "Have a good night, Father. See you tomorrow."

     "Thanks..." Father pushed his glasses up on his nose, somehow managing to be all nerves still, after who knew how many years of being basically-married to Dad. "You too, Kenji. See you tomorrow." He had to admit sometimes that old people could be kind of cute. Kenji peeked surreptitiously around the corner as he pulled on his coat. Father was hugging Dad at the stove and kissing him on the back of the head. "Smells delicious, cupcake..." Kenji rolled his eyes and didn't say anything.

     Gross, but cute.

     Not that he'd ever tell them that.

 


	2. Christmas Morning

     Waking up first in the morning was one of Tezuka's favorite habits. Light coming into their little bedroom through an eastern-facing window really should have woken him up hours before, but there were no alarms today, nowhere to be, no one to whom he owed his time except the man resting in his arms. He'd still have those few minutes before Syuusuke began to stir, before the world started moving, to lie here and watch the way the patterns of light moved on his lover's skin when he breathed. There was a kind of electricity where their bodies touched, nestled close on plain white cotton sheets that smelled faintly of starch. It wasn't every day that he woke up first like this, but Syuusuke always slept deeply well into the morning after nights like _that_. Shifting as little as he could to avoid waking his lover, Tezuka pulled the thin blanket up and over them both.

     They had apparently kicked off the covers while they'd been asleep. Australia was at the height of summer in December, but the nights were comfortable enough to leave the air conditioning off. Syuusuke had laughed that next year they should go somewhere with snow - drinking mulled wine sitting by open balcony doors instead of a roaring fire was less Christmas-y than was entirely proper, he'd said, even with the sound of carols drifting in from the street below. Still, though he was less versed on the subject, Tezuka thought it had been a pleasant first Christmas together...

     _Second_, he corrected himself. They'd been too distracted to notice last year, but their first anniversary had just come and gone last week. Logically the previous Christmas would have been their first.

     There was plenty of time to notice little things on this extended holiday. After they'd officially come out, the mass media had been in a frenzy. Their new publicist had _strongly recommended_ a nice, long trip out of the country to let it all die down before they made their professional debut. They weren't exactly rich, but they had enough. Lying low wasn't very expensive.

     Needless to say, Syuusuke had been thrilled that they'd get to have _a real honeymoon_, complete with hiding away where people who might be upset couldn't find them. So here they were, spending their "winter" in New South Wales, renting a seasonal condo just outside of Sydney - training for the Australian Open, sightseeing, free of ringing phones and flashing cameras. All in all, Tezuka reflected as he brushed his hand over the bare skin of Syuusuke's thigh, it had been a pleasant trip so far.

     "Mmh..." his lover sighed, beginning to stir.

     Tezuka answered by dropping his arm around Syuusuke's waist and pulling him close. There was a pleasant, warm feeling in the press of his beloved's back as he stretched between the sheets, tangling their legs and feet. He placed a long kiss on the back of his partner's neck, and the scent of eucalyptus shampoo in Syuusuke's hair filled his breath.

     Waking up first in the morning was absolutely one of his favorite things to do.

     "Good morning," Syuusuke said in a low whisper.

     "Good morning," he replied. "Merry Christmas."

     Syuusuke turned over to his other side, resting a head on a convenient shoulder and tracing finger-patterns across Tezuka's chest. With a contented sigh, his lover nestled in, as if to stay awhile. Still half-asleep, he was humming, and Tezuka could feel the sound resonating where Syuusuke had laid his head. It was one of the songs the carolers had been singing last night, a slow and stately tune when it was sung by the choir that had pulled at his imagination, even though he could barely make sense of the words. The humming was softer, simpler, less majestic... but no less beautiful.

     Tightening his arms around Syuusuke's body while the man sighed an end to the melody, he asked, "What do you say we go out for breakfast later instead of cooking?"

     His lover chuckled once and kissed him on the cheek. "You mean _lunch_. Breakfast at Christmas is cookies and hot chocolate by the tree when you open presents, remember?"

     In school, the holiday passed by with a bit of notice from the other students, but it hadn't concerned him. His family certainly hadn't paid much attention. While he'd been in Germany, there were strange traditions everywhere, songs he didn't know, lights and cookies and ghost stories. He'd stayed out of everyone's way.

     But here, even without snow his lover sighed for, even away from the festive crowds -- or perhaps _especially_ away from the festive crowds -- this was more than just another day, for reasons beyond Syuusuke's insistence that there be a conifer and ornaments and presents involved. Not to mention hot chocolate and cookies...

     "Of course," Tezuka said with a laugh, recalling the little evergreen in a pot on the table in the sitting room, and the origami stars they'd spent hours folding and balancing on the branches. Syuusuke had set up his camera timer to take the occasional picture, claiming he wanted evidence to refute anyone who said they'd probably spent the whole few months in the bedroom, and maybe the kitchen.

     Finding a way to get a present in secret and wrap it hadn't been easy, but eventually two packages bundled in fancy paper and ribbon had found their way under the branches. One held an indigo scarf with white snowflakes scattered over the ends that was far too warm for the weather here and now, but perfect for the weather Syuusuke wished they had. The other was a mystery. Neither package was labeled, but that wasn't really necessary.

     His first Christmas presents, Tezuka thought with a laugh while Syuusuke climbed into his lap for a kiss that lingered a few sunlit moments.

     His first, to give and to get. In that sense, at least, this was their first Christmas.

     "Come on," Syuusuke said and dropped his feet to the floor, tugging on Tezuka's hand. "I got whipped cream."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my fanfic timelines, this happens to be set on December 25, 2008, the Christmas for which the story was written.


	3. Family Christmas

     As far as Fuji was concerned, the years when Ooishi and Eiji had their Christmas date and the kids stayed at the Tezuka-Fuji residence on Christmas Eve were just as pleasant as the years he and Mitsu dropped their son off with their friends for the evening to steal some rare time alone. Cooking dinner and making his lover put on a red velvet cap with white fur trim and read stories was only half the fun. He'd always loved big, family holidays. Yuuta and his wife would probably stop by later, and Nee-san always brought her family in the afternoons to spend time with Kenji.

     And any minute now, Ooishi and Eiji would be coming in the door, completing their little family for the morning gift exchange. They'd all open presents under one big tree, the lower branches of which Kenji and Emiko-chan had kindly redecorated last night while he and Kunimitsu had put the star on the top.

     Mitsu was ladling steaming hot cocoa from the stove into the six mugs on the counter -- there was no one who made hot cocoa better than Mitsu, once he'd put his mind to learning -- and Fuji was standing ready with the canister of whipped cream.

     _Pffffft_. _Pffffft_. Two cups stood with cream piled like snow-covered hills. That sound was one of his favorite parts of Christmas -- right up there with lights, mistletoe, and wearing his blue snowflake scarf, which he put on every year when he got up and didn't take off until evening.

     Just as he was shaking the can again for another round, he felt a pull on his shirt.

     "Uncle Fuji?" Emiko-chan asked, bouncing up and down on her toes. "Can I help?" Only Eiji could handle a girl with that much energy full-time.

     She'd gotten so much bigger since their friends had adopted her four years ago, and of course their own child was starting to look like a proper little Tezuka. Both children had started grade school this year, already half the age as when he'd first met Mitsu. It didn't seem like it could possibly have been that long, but who was he to argue with school enrollment?

     Fuji tugged on one of the girl's pigtail braids and glanced over at his son, reading through a storybook while idly batting a tennis ball with his foot.

     "Here you go," Fuji replied, and handed Emiko-chan the two mugs. "Careful, now. Take these over for you and Kenji. Then sit down and let me know as soon as your fathers come in the door."

     "Okay!" she said with a grin, gripping the handle of a mug solidly in each hand. He watched her pivot slowly toward the door and walk with exaggerated care over to the tree before he turned back to the rest of the hot cocoa.

     Mitsu was watching, too, and smiling. That tiny, happy glimmer that crossed his lips and filled his eyes when he thought no one could see him had gotten more frequent over time. He caught his lover smiling now three or four times a year. No one else noticed, but no one else watched him closely enough.

     Fuji snuck a kiss on the cheek and whispered, "Merry Christmas."

     That got Mitsu's attention. And a long hug, with a 'child-safe' kiss on the nose.

     "Merry Christmas, Syuusuke."

     Behind him, he heard the door opening and Ooishi's voice calling, "Pardon the intrusion!" from outside.

     "Daddy!" yelled Emiko-chan before bounding across the floor.

     "Dad," Kenji called out in a bored tone over the sound of a turning page, "I think Uncle Ooishi and Uncle Eiji are here."

     Eiji was next. "Well, if it isn't Baby Tezuka!" Fuji buried a laugh in Full-Sized Tezuka's shoulder, imagining the indignant face their over-serious son always made when Eiji pounced. "How ya doin', kid?"

     "I just saw you last night," Kenji reminded him. "Nothing's different."

     "Still talking back to your elders, huh?"

     Fuji turned around, locked pleasantly tight inside Mitsu's arms as he faced the scene by the tree. Emiko-chan had climbed her way up onto Ooishi's shoulders before he'd even managed to get his coat off, and Eiji was on his knees making a mess of a rather petulant Kenji's hair.

     "I'd say you should teach this kid some manners," Eiji said, looking up toward the kitchen, "but I guess I know where he got these ones, so there's not much point, _is there? _"

     Emiko-chan started pulling on Ooishi's ears, giggling as she spoke. "Daddy, Daddy! Tell the one again about how Uncle Tezuka used to correct his teachers in math class!"

     The room filled with laughter, and Mitsu took one hand from Fuji's waist for a moment. He was pushing up his glasses -- Fuji could tell easily, even without looking. "Well, they were wrong," his lover said, hardly ashamed of his terrible classroom behavior.

     Mitsu's arm drifted back into place, holding him again with an extra squeeze.

     No matter how they ended up spending Christmas, the best parts of the holiday never changed.


	4. Christmas Rules

LXXXVIII.  
Ist es dir Ernst, so zaudre nun länger nicht; mache mich glücklich!  
Wolltest du scherzen? Es sey, Liebchen, des Scherzes genug!

LXXXIX.  
Daß ich schweige, verdrießt dich? Was soll ich reden? Du merkest  
Auf der Seufzer, des Blicks leise Beredsamkeit nicht.  
Eine Göttinn vermag der Lippe Siegel zu lösen;  
Nur Aurora, sie weckt einst dir am Busen mich auf.  
Ja, dann töne mein Hymnus den frühen Göttern entgegen,  
Wie das Memnonische Bild lieblich Geheimnisse sang.

[Venetianische Epigramme. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1790.]

~//~

     The crowds of people moved outside on the street, beyond the store's window glass, and some few patrons wound their way through the book-covered shelves that hid one from another like a maze. Not unusual for a slow winter Monday. Tezuka sensed them, but let them all fade into the background while he studied the small text he'd picked up. It was the first real day of vacation, and his mother had asked him to get out of the house, but to go somewhere other than the tennis courts. She'd held his racket at home, just to be sure, and before too long he'd decided on the bookstore. There had been a few works on the list of suggestions from his German tutor, Ooguchi-sensei, that he'd wanted to try. The style was older than he was used to, but he could read most of the words -- maybe even seven tenths of it.

     "_If you be in earnest_," Tezuka read the next line silently in his head, trying to understand rather than translate as his tutor had directed him to practice during the break, "_tarry no longer: make me happy! Would you jest? Oh, my dear love, we've had enough of jokes._"

     He'd read in the forward that Goethe didn't like his own poetry. Maybe Tezuka simply wasn't skilled enough in the language to judge, but all he could say for certain was that the writing was very different from his mathematics. A few selections from The Venetian Epigrams had come up in his classes, he recognized now, and the feeling behind them was just as oddly opaque in context as they'd been before. Ooguchi-sensei had been a bit confused, he recalled. "You're thirteen already, aren't you?" he'd said. And when Tezuka looked back, just as puzzled, he'd brushed off the whole incident by saying, "Well, you'll figure it out before too long, I'm sure," and moved on to the next lesson.

     Today, however, it didn't make any more sense than it had before.

     Suddenly, before he could begin the next line, someone pushed his book down. "Tezuka-kun? I thought that was you."

     Across the pages, he saw his teammate's blue eyes. "Fuji-kun," he said, and the younger boy smiled. They'd started meeting occasionally to study during free periods at school, ever since the match they'd played in secret when he'd upset Fuji so much by playing with his arm injured. "I didn't expect to see you outside of school."

     He took a seat in the chair next to Tezuka's, looking even smaller than usual next to the oversized cushions and with his feet not quite reaching the floor. "I saw you through the window on my way to meet Nee-san for lunch. What are you reading?"

     Tezuka held up the little paper volume, still studying Fuji's eyes while he read the cover, as he sometimes did when the other boy showed them clearly. He had fascinating eyes, and not just because they were blue. They were confusing, like an answer just beyond his reach -- not unlike a poem he didn't quite understand. When they'd flashed with anger that day on the court, it was the first time he'd seen them up close, and the look had shocked him like nothing else had ever done. The happier looks, while they were alone together in the library, weren't like anything else, either. Maybe someday he'd figure that out, too.

     "Goethe?" Fuji asked. "I've never heard of it."

     "He's a German writer. I liked his mathematics, so I thought I'd look at his poetry."

     "Oh? What's it like?" His friend leaned in to peek at the pages the way he always did when they were comparing notes at school. The way he didn't want to pull back when Fuji came close was just as strange, really. The world was full of things that didn't quite make sense where his classmate -- and eighteenth century poetry -- were concerned.

     "It's..." Tezuka paused, not sure what to say. Finally, he decided just to let the work speak for itself. Starting with the next line, he read aloud, "Daß ich schweige--"

     Fuji cut him off by tugging on his sleeve and whispered, "Not helping," by his ear.

     His teammate was right, of course. That wouldn't clarify anything to someone who didn't speak any German. Tezuka wasn't sure of his sense for translating the lines on the spot with no dictionary, but he'd give it his best. With a sigh as he considered the words, Tezuka pulled the book so it was more centered between the two of them and ran his finger under each line while he spoke. "When I am silent... does it annoy you? Of what should I speak? You mark neither my sighs... nor the silent speech in my gaze. One goddess only could loosen my lips; only Aurora, who wakes me when I am upon your breast... Yes, then my..." He trailed off as Fuji turned away from the page to look at him instead. His friend was...

     Was he blushing?

     "_Oh_," Fuji said. "Ah..." His blue eyes flickered away to the floor for a moment. There was no question. Tezuka could see his cheeks flushing slightly, and his ears had turned a bright pinkish red.

     "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--"

     Well, he wasn't sure what to say, but whatever he had done, he hadn't meant to do it.

     "It's okay." His friend looked up again and flashed him a bright smile. "It's just ... I guess it's a little hotter than something I'd picture you reading."

     "Oh?" He drew the book back towards him and read over the lines again. Had the problem been with the last image? The one about the man speaking to his 'dear love' because dawn had-- Tezuka took another moment to process why Fuji might have called the image 'hot'. "_Oh_. I... didn't..." He bit his tongue and pushed his glasses up on his nose, then marked his place before closing the book entirely. "I don't believe that's unreasonable for an example of Weimar Classicism," he said at last. Tezuka would have liked to have been able to control the blush he had on his own cheeks, almost as much as he hoped he could read this when he next met his tutor without picturing himself lying in bed until dawn with Fuji. It would be inappropriate, especially given how uncomfortable his friend seemed to be at the moment.

     Then he heard Fuji laughing, discomfort apparently passed. "It's really not a problem, Tezuka-k..." Fuji bit his lip and then smiled, with his eyes shining in that strange, fascinating way. "Tezuka. Don't worry about it. But I think now you have to teach me some German when you take me to lunch."

     "I ... don't mind. But..." He paused in the middle of dropping the book back into his shopping back and looked at Fuji, confused. "What's this about lunch?"

     "It's Christmas!" Fuji insisted, and pulled him up by the hand. "I'll call Nee-san and tell her that I'll meet her later."

     It was the twenty-fifth of December, Tezuka saw when he checked his watch. Without a doubt, that was Christmas. "What does Christmas have to do with lunch?"

     "If you want to read me 'examples of Weimar Classicism' on Christmas, you have to take me to lunch," his friend answered, beaming and refusing to drop his hand. "It's a rule."

     Fuji was the last person he would have named to be concerned about any kind of rule, Tezuka thought with a bemused shake of his head. He seemed to have an inexplicable ability to make himself exempt from them unless what the rule prescribed was exactly what he wanted to do. But he let Fuji drag him out into the light snow flurries on the street anyway.

     A few steps down the sidewalk, Fuji stopped in Tezuka's path and studied his face. "You're smiling, aren't you?" He sounded surprised, but not as surprised as Tezuka was to hear it. Usually, only his mother could tell.

     He didn't know a way to say to a teammate, '_I'm smiling because it's cute when you make up rules for Christmas_.' It would probably sound strange. So he just nodded and wondered if Fuji was waiting for him to let go of his hand. His friend seemed fine, though. He even squeezed their hands tighter whenever the wind blew harder. Instead of letting go, just for this walk in the cold wind, Tezuka laced their fingers together. It was warmer that way. "You know," he said quietly. "I'd go to lunch with you even if it weren't Christmas, Fuji. We're friends. You don't have to make excuses."

     And there was that same inexplicable something in his friend's smile again, while his eyes tracked some of the snowflakes dancing down to the street. He shot Tezuka one sidelong glance and bit his lip.

     "But it's more fun this way."

~//~

Is' thou'rt in earnest, no longer delay, but render me happy;  
Art thou in jest? Ah, sweet love! time for all jesting is past.

ART thou, then, vex'd at my silence? What shall I speak of? Thou markest  
Neither my sorrowful sigh, nor my soft eloquent look.  
Only one goddess is able the seal of my lips to unloosen,-  
When by Aurora I'm found, slumbering calm on thy breast.  
Ah, then my hymn in the ears of the earliest gods shall be chaunted,  
As the Memnonian form breath'd forth sweet secrets in song.

[Goethe's Works. Ed. Hjalmar Boyeson, 1885.]


	5. Christmas Pageant

     No matter how long Tezuka stared at his costume in the mirror, he couldn't believe the sight. He was without a doubt standing inside a chest-high green and red Christmas stocking while Syuusuke dabbed rouge and powder onto his cheeks.

     "Remind me again how Atobe talked us into this?"

     "It's the annual Parents' Christmas Pageant, Mitsu. Don't you remember these from when we were in middle school?"

     No escaping tradition, then. He certainly remembered that they had happened. Among his duties on the student council, he'd been responsible for acquiring the annual crate of glitter and organizing the annual rehearsal space in the gym for the annual crowd of confused parents and guardians. But he'd always managed to convince the teachers to let him spend the actual pageant hour in the library. "My parents were never in the show," Tezuka answered. His father was always too busy with work, and he'd successfully convinced his mother that her charity work was more important.

     "Sociologically, maybe that's why you were so distant from your peer group. Nee-san was just telling me before she took her seat how the shared experience of seeing their parents humiliate themselves makes kids friendlier towards each other. Sort of like bonding by mutual trauma." As Syuusuke spritzed his hair with hairspray one last time, he bit back all his thoughts about how that didn't seem quite right. Yumiko was a psychologist, after all. Either that was her expert opinion or Syuusuke was deliberately misquoting, and neither would get him out of this stocking. "There. Perfect," his lover said, beaming as he adjusted his own headpiece. "Now, do my antlers look straight?"

     "They're straight, and the effect becomes you." In Tezuka's own biased opinion, he'd be the handsomest reindeer in the history of Parents' Christmas Pageants. The ridiculous nature of pageants notwithstanding.

     "Should I wear them home, then?"

     "_No._"

     As Syuusuke's laugh rang through the whole dressing room, his lover kissed a finger -- lightly, to keep his lipstick from smudging -- and brought it up to Tezuka's lips to kiss back. "It'll be over before you know it. And you'll be fine."

     "_I am dressed in a stocking._"

     "Which Atobe picked for you specifically so you wouldn't have to dance. He even wrote your lines just for you. One might say he went out of his way."

     So he had. Tezuka couldn't deny that.

     _Let's celebrate the holiday without regrets._

     He sounded like an advertisement for prophylactics, or perhaps for a fire extinguisher.

     The door opened softly, and Ooishi leaned in to whisper, "Come on! They're calling for places!"

     Easy for him to say. He was dressed as an elf.

     With a sigh, Tezuka pulled up his infinitely undignified costume so he could hobble along toward the stage, Syuusuke holding his elbow as he walked alongside. "I'll give you a tip, to counter your stagefright," he laughed. "How's that?"

     "I'm not picturing the audience naked. That's our son and his classmates out there."

     "Oh, don't be silly." As he held open the door, Syuusuke murmured, "Just remember: no matter how embarrassed you are to be up on the stage, Kenji is five hundred times more embarrassed to be watching us."


	6. Late Christmas

     "It's good to be home, isn't it?" Daddy asked him with his usual smile, sorting through his keys for the right one to open the door. He looked happy, but everybody was cranky today -- Daddy said traveling did that to people, and had told Kenji that he shouldn't mind. So Father had been quiet all day, and stopped in the apartment office without explaining as soon as they got back, and Daddy was sighing a lot, and he had a headache, but it was all supposed to be better once they got inside and sat down. Kenji didn't know why inside sitting was better, because they'd been sitting on the train, and on the plane before that, and that was what had made them cranky. He was too tired after the long flight to say much, though, so he just nodded and leaned against Daddy's elbow, pulling his backpack tighter on his back.

     The Moon had been fun, he guessed, and the teachers at school had given his parents all his lessons ahead of time so he wouldn't fall behind, but netting in to practice with his Go club wasn't as good as playing with real stones. Daddy called him old fashioned because he liked real stones and goban and books and things, just like his father liked real books, but real stones were just better! And so was paper. And with the trip to Uncle Atobe's first Lunar Open (Daddy said he didn't like Uncle Atobe, but he agreed anyway when he heard he and Father got to be judges and to play an _ex-hi-bi-tion_ match -- that meant they were playing because people wanted to see it, not for prizes), they had to go through space training and stay for days in the shuttle building doing nothing (_qua-ran-tine_, Father said, in case they got sick).

     Uncle Atobe was weird, and tennis tournaments were boring (although he tried not to tell Father that to his face because it made him look sad), and he hadn't played Go with real stones in more than a month. At least seeing Uncle Ryoma again had been cool. He'd warned Kenji to hide when the crazy monk in sunglasses was running around, dragging people off to play '_Super Samurai Space Tennis Supreme_', and he'd snuck under the table at the big dinners to play cards when things got boring, where he'd taught Kenji to play Rummy. Most people only thought he was smart enough to play Go Fish or Old Maid. Rummy was way more fun than Old Maid.

     Daddy rolled their suitcases inside, and they both slipped off their shoes in the entryway. It was weird to see the couch and the kitchen and all the cacti by the window, just the same as they'd always been, but there they all were. "I'm going to get some water," Daddy said, ruffling his hair. "Do you want some?"

     He nodded again, and sat down in the middle of the floor, right where he could see Father when he walked in carrying two packages. The bottom one was big, and not quite tall enough to be a cube. The top one was a shape he'd never be able to forget, ever, no matter how long he lived. The big, oval end with the long, stick-like part jutting out of the bottom said the top package was absolutely, positively a tennis racket. Kenji tried not to frown. He wasn't supposed to have heard his parents 'discussing' whether they were going to sign him up for tennis lessons this spring.

     He'd do fine at them, he knew, and maybe it'd be fun if he just gave it a chance like Father said -- and he knew even Daddy was disappointed he didn't want to, even though he was the one who always said, "You remember what Echizen's father was like, and how that turned out. Echizen _liked_ tennis, and it still took an intervention from you for him to care about it, and then a miracle for him to remember it was _fun_. Kenji wants something different. We can't try to make him be a copy of ourselves." They'd agreed to put that talk on hold until after they got back from the Moon, so they could all just have a nice vacation together.

     It wasn't that he wanted to make his parents sad. He just didn't like tennis.

     Father nodded at him silently, putting down the packages while he took off his shoes. Before he could get his slippers on, Daddy had come out of the kitchen with two glasses of water. He was looking at the racket, too, with his frowny face on. "Mitsu..."

     Standing, Father pushed up his glasses and took up the packages again. "It's... the surprise I promised..." His voice trailed off as Daddy raised the same eyebrow he'd raised on the Moon when Father asked if they could have Christmas when they got home instead. "I'm sorry this is late, Syuusuke. We were already at Mare Tranquillitatis before your racket shipped." Kenji blinked. Father was looking right at Daddy. Not at him.

     His eyes open wide, Daddy looked like he'd forgotten the water in his hands. "_My_ racket?"

     They shared an awkward dance of a moment as they tried to figure out how to get the racket from Father's hands (full of packages) to Daddy's hands (full of water), until Daddy finally put the two glasses down and broke into the cardboard wrapping. It sure was a racket, all right. "Merry Christmas, Syuusuke."

     "Mitsu! How did you get the new Triple Threat?! They're not supposed to be out until March!" He looked up, a laugh in his grin for the first time all day. His headache must have gotten better. "And I can't believe it's gold, too. They haven't painted these gold in _years_."

     "I... asked," Father answered. "Since it was our twentieth, I thought--"

     Daddy cut him off with a kiss on the cheek around the box Father was still holding. "Gold is for our fiftieth, Mitsu, but I won't tell. And thank you. It looks just like my old one." He stepped over to his suitcase and pulled out something a little thicker than a sandwich, wrapped in a bag. "I guess you can have this now."

     Taking a knee on the floor, Father pushed the large box over the floor toward Kenji. "I thought you might want this before you go back to classes," he said, then stood to take the smaller package Daddy had held out to him. Before opening his own box, Kenji watched Father pull his present out of the bag. It was an old, hardcover book with German on the cover. Father had the stony, stoic look on his face he always got before he almost but didn't quite cry. "This is a first edition," was all he said at first. Then, a few moments later, he looked back at Daddy. "I can't believe you remember that."

     "You can read it to me later. Right now, I want to see what you got our son." He stepped back toward his suitcase to fish out another package, and at a nod from his father, Kenji broke the tape holding his box closed. He wasn't sure what to expect when he pulled the packing stuff.

     But it was a goban. A full-size one, with legs and everything, and real stones to go with it. His own goban, to practice with at home!

     "I guess you'll be able to use this, then," Daddy said, laying a green book down on top of the board.

     Kenji flipped through the pages marked with numbered black and white dots, eyes growing wider as he skimmed over all the notes, most of them in kanji he could barely read. Yet. "You got me Syuusaku's castle games? For real?"

     "And we'll study them with you, if you want, although we can't promise to be much help." Daddy was snuggled up to Father's shoulder again, which they hadn't been doing as much on the Moon as they usually did on vacation. All the tiredness he'd been feeling all day fell off of Kenji's shoulders, and now he felt too happy to know what to say instead. So he pulled out the two sets of stones and started laying the first game out onto the board, even though it was still in the box. Kenji heard Daddy whisper to his father, "You talked to Echizen, didn't you?"

     "I didn't have to," Father murmured back. "Samurai Nanjirou isn't the most flattering mirror to look into."

     Kenji looked up from his game. Samurai Nanjirou? He knew that name. "Wait. Was the crazy monk on the Moon _Uncle Ryoma's dad_?" His parents froze. He probably wasn't supposed to have heard any of that. But if they didn't want him hearing, they shouldn't have said it in front of him. Shaking his head at his father, who never skipped or whooped or ever did handstands on tennis court nets, Kenji said, "You are _nothing_ like that."

     And he could have sworn he saw his father smile.


End file.
